John Gray: Children Are from Heaven: Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

Rather than seeking to create good children,

positive parenting seeks to create

compassionate children.

Past parenting approaches focused on creating submission; positive parenting aims to develop confident leaders, who are capable of creating their own destiny, not just passively following in the footsteps of others before them. These confident children are aware of who they are and what they want to accomplish.

Confident children are not easily swayed by peer

pressure nor do they feel the need to rebel.

These strong children are not easily swayed by peer pressure nor do they feel a need to rebel in order to be themselves. They think for themselves, yet remain open to the assistance and help of their parents. As adults, they are not held back by the limited beliefs of others. They follow an inner compass and make decisions for themselves.

Just as the world today is different, our children are different.

They no longer respond to fear-based parenting. The old fear-based approaches actually weaken a parent’s control. The threat of punishment only turns children against their parents and causes them to rebel. The intimidation of yelling and spanking no longer creates control, but simply numbs a child’s willingness to listen and cooperate. Parents are seeking better communication with their children to prepare them for the increased pressures of life today but, unfortunately, they are still using outdated approaches for parenting.

The threat of punishment only turns children

against their parents and causes them to rebel.

I remember my dad making this mistake. He would try to control his six boys and one daughter with threats of punishment. He had been a sergeant in the military, and this was the only way he knew. In some ways, he treated us like army privates. Whenever we would resist his control, he would regain control with the threat of punishment. Though this parenting style worked to some degree in his generation, it didn’t work for mine, and it clearly is not working for our children today.

When his threat didn’t result in obedience, my father would increase the threat. He would say, “If you keep talking to me like that, you are grounded for a week.”

When I continued to resist, he would say, “If you don’t stop, it will be two weeks.”

When I persisted, he would say, “Okay then, you are grounded for one month, now go to your room.”

Upping the punishment has no real positive effect and only engenders greater resentment. For the whole month, I just reflected on how unfair he was. Instead of increasing my willingness to cooperate, his action pushed me farther away.

He would have had a much more positive influence if he had just said, “Since you are not respecting what I am saying, I want you to take a time out for ten minutes.”

Punishment in the past was used to break a strong-willed child. Although it may have worked to create obedience, it doesn’t work today. Children are now more sophisticated and aware. They recognize what is unfair and abusive and will not tolerate it. They will resent and rebel. Most importantly, punishment and the threat of punishment break down the lines of communication. Instead of being a part of the solution, you the parent become a part of the problem.

Punishment makes you, the parent, an enemy

to hide from instead of a parent to turn to

for support.

When parents yell at children, it just numbs their ability to hear. To succeed in school and, more importantly, to compete in the free market or experience success in a lasting relationship, adults today need better communication skills.

These skills are most effectively learned when children listen to their parents and parents listen to their children.

Children listen to their parents when parents

learn how to listen to their children.

What happens when you listen to music at loud levels? You lose your hearing. The same thing happens when parents yell or make demands all the time. When parents today yell or communicate the way their parents did, it has a different effect. Children today will just be turned off, and parents will lose control.

In previous generations, societies were suppressed, controlled, and manipulated by strong, punishing dictators, but it is not so today. People will not stand for injustice and the violation of human rights; they will revolt instead. People have sacrificed their lives for the principles of democracy.

In a similar way, children today will not accept the threat of punishment. They will revolt. Children today feel more intensely the injustice of punishment. When punishment goes in, it comes back out as increased resistance, resentment, rejection, and rebellion. Children today are rejecting their parents’ values and rebelling against parental control at younger and younger ages.

Before they are psychologically mature or prepared to let go of their parents’ support, children and teens are pulling away and rejecting the support that is so important for their development. They long to be free of their parents’ control at a time when they need that control to develop in a healthy manner.

Before they are psychologically prepared,

children and teens are rejecting necessary

parental support.

Many parents recognize that the old methods of punishment don’t work, but they just don’t know another way. They hold back from punishing, but that doesn’t work either.

Permissive parenting doesn’t give children the parental control they need. When given an inch of power, these children take a mile. Children quickly learn to use their freedom to manipulate and control parents.

When children are allowed to use strong, negative moods, feelings, and tantrums to get their way, they are in control. When a child is in control, they are out of their parents’ control. In many ways, they will develop some of the same problems of children who are raised with outdated fear-based skills.

When children are in control, they are out of

their parents’ control.

Whether a child is raised with fear-based skills or permissive skills, if the child doesn’t experience that his parents are in control, he will rebel or reject any attempts a parent makes to regain or maintain control. Disconnected from his parents’ support, his development will be restricted. By using the skills of positive parenting in Children Are from Heaven, parents can give their children the freedom and leadership they need to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.

The old fear-based practices of managing our children through intimidation, criticism, disapproval, and punishment have not only lost their power but are counterproductive. Children are more sensitive than in previous generations. They are capable of much more, but are also influenced in a negative way by old parenting skills like yelling, spanking, hitting, punishing, grounding, disapproving, humiliating, and shaming. When children were more thick-skinned, these approaches were useful, but today they are outdated and counterproductive.

In the past, punishing children by spanking made them fear authority and follow the rules. Today it has the opposite effect. Violence in means violence out. This is a symptom of being more sensitive. Children today can be more creative and intelligent than in previous generations, but they are also more influenced by outer conditions.

When children are more sensitive, violence in

means violence out.

Children today can best learn to respect others, not by fear tactics, but through imitation. Children are programmed to imitate their parents. Their minds are always taking pictures and making recordings to mimic and follow whatever you say or do. They practically learn everything through imitation and cooperation.